How-to

October 29, 2015

Revit 2016 added a second rendering engine - Autodesk Raytracer. When rendering with this option, you can use the Coarse Poche Material (and have it use the color for the rendered image). Previously when using the NVIDIA® mental ray engine the poche cut pattern color would not be displayed. Example process below:

Open a 3D view > click Edit Type from the Properties

Locate the Coarse Poche Material parameter > click in the cell … button to open the material browser and modify the material Graphics > Cut Pattern settings for Pattern and Color (pattern needs to be set to Solid Fill) > OK

Set your 3D view to Detail Level > Coarse

Enable the 3D Section Box > adjust so it cuts some model geometry > you should see the color and solid fill pattern you specified

View > Render. For Engine, specify Autodesk Raytracer

Click Render. For the elements cut by the section box (and displaying the poche pattern / color) they should be rendered that way. The realistic visual style should also show the coarse poche material

For this example when the view is cut by the section box and rendered, the color \ solid fill pattern still displays:

May 11, 2015

If you have used A360 Collaboration for Revit 2015, when you install and open A360 Collaboration for Revit 2016, your 2015 projects and their associated Revit models will not be visible. To access 2015 project data in A360 Collaboration for Revit 2016, you will need to create a new project and upgrade the data.

Follow these steps to upgrade your projects and Revit models before you start working in A360 Collaboration for Revit 2016.

1. Open Revit 2015.

2. Browse to the A360 project that you want to upgrade.

3. Open each Revit model and save it to your local workstation.

4. Create a new project to be used with A360 Collaboration for Revit 2016 in your A360 team hub.

5. Open Revit 2016.

6. Open each Revit model that was saved to your local workstation in step 3 and save it.

A 2016 version of the model is created.

7. Initiate collaboration on each model and specify the 2016 project name that was created on A360 in step 4.

When you initiate collaboration, the model is associated with the new A360 Collaboration for Revit 2016 project.

8. Re-link the Revit models as needed.

9. Communicate to project team members that they should use the 2016 project.

There are now two separate and distinct projects (2015 format and 2016 format). Project team members must use the upgraded project and models when collaborating.

September 02, 2014

An online event with an opportunity to receive up to US$100 per app published and win one of eight iPad minis!

You are invited to join the Autodesk® Exchange Apps Hackathon — a virtual web based hackathon that runs from 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (PT) on Saturday, September 20 to 4:00 p.m. September 21. Anyone can participate from anywhere in the world and at any time both before the event and during the Hackathon days. The Hackathon is a free event and offers a cash reward for apps published (up to 5 apps). You can also participate in the “Cloud App” and “Sustainability App” competitions for a chance to win an iPad mini. You can even participate in the Hackathon without publishing apps – you can use the event as a learning opportunity to build products and services by using a new Autodesk API such as one of our Cloud service APIs.

May 14, 2014

Revit 2015 introduces some new revision tool functionality. I’ve outlined the 3 biggest changes from 2014, along with some additional information:

Draw Tools

Instead of a generic cloud tool that required a lot of clicks, the standard draw tools are now available. Rectangle is set as the default for revision cloud sketches:

Delete Revisions

Revisions can now be deleted, which will remove the revision from the project and all associated clouds \ tags. You cannot delete an issued revision:

Arc Length

On a project-wide basis you can control the maximum cloud segment size (the “double bubble”). For example, if Arc Length is set to 2”, and you are drawing a revision cloud on a sheet directly, after the segment passes 2” a second segment would begin:

Some quick additional tidbits to keep in mind:

Sheet Scaling

With Revit 2015 revision clouds are treated similar to annotation and scale according to the view scale. For example, if you were to draw the clouds directly on a sheet the exact arc length value would utilized.

By default the Arc Length is set to 3/4” for new 2015 projects. If your previous-release project contains revision clouds, when you upgrade to Revit 2015 the Arc Length is set to 3 1/2”. For most cases this will prevent revision cloud geometry changes on upgrade. Then, on a project basis, you can set it to the desired size.

July 31, 2013

You have a custom shape multi-segment grid visible in your
view. You also have the crop region
enabled for the view. You notice that
one or more of the mutli-segment grids are not displaying the end symbol
(bubble).

Initially the crop region looks like this and all the
bubbles are visible:

You adjust the crop region, and the top symbols no longer
display:

This issue is specific to multi-segment grids, where there is
only 1 sub-segment visible within the crop region (and that 1 sub-segment is
cut by the crop).

The workaround is simple:

Edit the grid sketch

Use the Modify > Split Element tool

Click somewhere within the crop (to create a second sketch segment)

Finish the sketch. The multi-segment grid line should display the end symbol now, since there is no longer only 1 sub-segment visible & intersected by the crop region:

April 23, 2013

I’ve included a few tips using some of the new
schedules features from Revit 2014:

Formatting in your Project
Template

Formatting for the schedule title \ header \ body section
can be added in your Revit template file even if the schedule is not yet populated. For example, if you wish to add shading to columns and headers; first select the column index (which highlights the
entire column) and apply formatting:

Then you can select the headers or grouped headers and apply
formatting:

You won’t technically see any of the column formatting
until the schedule is populated with elements (since the columns don’t
exist yet), but it’s a nice method to set this up ahead of time. Start adding some walls in the project later and
the schedule uses the formatting you initially
set:

“Generic Table”

Want to create a simple “generic table” where you can insert
text, parameters, shading, images, etc.?
Well you could use the Revit 2014 schedules title section…

First, create a new schedule and either choose a category you do not have in your project, or alternatively filter the schedule so
nothing displays in the body section.

Then under the Schedule Properties > ‘Appearance’ tab,
un-check ‘Show Headers’. Now you unmerge
the default title row and add additional rows, text, parameters, images,
shading, etc. And you still get the specific
control to resize the column and row dimensions.

Two tips; First use the ‘Clear Cell’ tool to remove the
default schedule view name. You can then
use that cell to enter any data you wish.
Second, set up your cell sizes before adding new rows. The new rows will use the previous row for
cell number, size and formatting:

Disclaimer: Keep in mind this isn’t perfect, but should be
considered a creative use of the schedules title section. No schedules were hurt (yet) during this process.

Generic Model Schedule – Volume

First of all Revit 2014 adds Generic Models as a scheduleable
category. While you could schedule
generic model elements in Revit 2013 using a Multi-Category Schedule, you did
not get the ‘Volume’ parameter (and you needed to creatively filter the schedule). In Revit
2014 you can both create a generic model schedule and schedule the volume:

Last tip here; don’t forget to double-click on the schedule
sheet instance to open the schedule view for editing!